Murphy J M
Harvard Medical School, Department of Epidemiology Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts.
Acta Psychiatr Scand Suppl. 1994;385:48-57; discussion 58-60. doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0447.1994.tb05913.x.
Psychiatric epidemiologic research has been criticized by anthropologists for ignoring cultural variation in the definitions of psychiatric disorders. While recognizing the importance of this issue, it is suggested here that a considerable amount of ethnographic evidence indicates that many types of comparative effort can be carried out without cultural injustice. It is also urged that anthropologists provide a system for classifying cultures so as to foster an understanding of the ways in which shared beliefs and meanings can influence psychiatric illness. Categorizing populations as Western versus Non-Western or Developed versus Developing is inadequate as a basis for studying the cultural context of psychiatric illness in different parts of the world.
精神病流行病学研究因忽视精神疾病定义中的文化差异而受到人类学家的批评。尽管认识到这个问题的重要性，但这里有人认为，大量的人种志证据表明，许多类型的比较研究可以在不造成文化不公的情况下进行。还有人敦促人类学家提供一种文化分类系统，以促进对共同信仰和意义如何影响精神疾病的理解。将人群分为西方与非西方或发达与发展中作为研究世界不同地区精神疾病文化背景的基础是不够的。
